1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephone communications apparatus and a telephone communications system for mixing a music signal with a speech signal. More particularly, it relates to furnishing music as background sound during speech.
2. Description of the Background Art
A conventional telephone terminal in which music is provided as background sound during speech is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2001-60993.
The telephone terminal disclosed in the above publication is directed to a car phone or a mobile phone and mixes a music signal with a speech signal (transmitting and received signals) to send out the resulting signal or emanate the resulting voice as audible sound.
However, in this conventional telephone terminal, a music signal is mixed even during the time when an effective speaker's voice is carried on a speech signal, and therefore there is a risk that the music signal renders the speaker's voice less audible to interfere with conversation. In order to avoid this interference, it may be contemplated to render the mix ratio of a music signal to a speech signal adjustable. However, when the subscriber talks and transmits a transmitting signal, he or she would like to adjust the mix ratio, but would fail to appropriately adjust it because he or she could not monitor the resultant, mixed signal.
Moreover, in the above-described conventional telephone terminal, music data are stored in and read out from the memory and converted from a digital to an analog form to be mixed thereafter. The number of the music pieces stored is limited, or only a portion of a music piece may be stored, due to the storage capacity of the memory. That gives rise to allowing only some fixed music pieces to be prepared as the background sound to the extent that, when the conversation continues for a long period of time on the phone the same background sound has to repetitively be played.
In addition, in the conventional technology, if the telephone terminal used is not provided with the background music function, then the subscriber is unable to enjoy the background sound of music.
There has thus been a demand for a telephone communications apparatus and a telephone communications system which make the background music function available to an extended number of subscribers or applicable to an extended number of types of terminal without dependency on the sorts of telephone terminal.